Week in review: Young children in the spotlight

Evangelina De La Fuente, worries that the Head Start her 3-year-old twin grandsons attend could close or change. "The babies are secure and they’re happy and they’re well fed and they’re well taken cared for. It’s scary to think it could change," she said.

Hundreds of vulnerable Detroit families are bracing for change in the wake of the announcement last week from a prominent social service organization that it can no longer operate Head Start centers. Other social service providers are stepping up take over the 11 Head Starts that have been run by Southwest Solutions but their ability to smoothly pick up the 420 children who are affected and find classroom space for them is uncertain. That’s added stress to lives of families already in crisis.

“The babies are secure and they’re happy and they’re well fed and they’re well cared for. It’s scary to think it could change.”

— Evangelina De La Fuente, grandmother of twin three-year-olds who attend a Southwest Solutions Head Start

Given the impact that quality early childhood programs can have on preparing children for kindergarten, advocates are calling for a better support system. That’s one of the missions of the new Hope Starts Here initiative, which was rolled out this morning. The coalition of parents, educators and community groups, led by two major foundations, spent the last year assessing the needs of Detroit children before unveiling a ten-year plan for how Detroit can improve the lives of young children.

Low-income parents rely on Head Start for support, but hundreds of Detroit families just learned that their teachers and locations may change as other providers take over programs that had been run by Southwest Solutions.

After an audit discovered that two Detroit charter schools were not properly serving students with special needs, a state university is analyzing the special education offerings at the 20 schools it oversees across the state.

The state Supreme Court heard arguments on whether teachers should be refunded the $554 million that was taken improperly from their paychecks. An attorney for the state argued teachers will “be made whole” if the money is returned to the state. Leaders of two teachers unions want “justice.”

Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill that will enable five more Michigan cities to create “Promise” scholarship programs that guarantee free college tuition to local grads, expanding a program that has been popular in Detroit and nine other Michigan cities. . Four cities including Flint have been on a waiting list to join the program.

The co-presidents of the state board of education blasted a House effort to eliminate the board, calling it a “misdirected guise” to blame the board for declining test scores. “It is inserting politics into the education of Michigan’s children,” they write.

Voters in dozens of communities and districts voted to raise their taxes to support schools this week as the debate continues over whether charter schools should share in the proceeds. If a bill extending the cash to charters passes, online cyber academies are among schools that would benefit. Leaders of traditional districts oppose the effort but charter school backers say their students “shouldn’t be worth less.”